Cancellation Watch: Agents of SHIELD Returns Low, Could Its Days Be Numbered?

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10 years ago

Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.

Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Tuesday Mar 3rd thru Thursday Mar 5th (analysis and metric definitions below):

Repeat. Resumes new episodes March 17th

Not a good return for this show. It needs to trend up from here if it has any hope of surviving. (More on this one below)

Season ended, renewal in question.

Repeat. Resumes new episodes March 17th

It held steady with last week, but it really needs to be trending up.

Repeat. Returns with a new episode next week.

Repeat. Resumes new episodes March 18th

The good news: it held steady with last week despite only having a repeat of Arrow as a lead-in. The bad news: it barely improved on the numbers from its repeat lead-in.

Repeat. Resumes new episodes March 12th

On the Hot Seat: ABC’s Agents of SHIELD returned from its two and a half month hiatus on Tuesday and saw its numbers slip to a 1.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 4.5 million total viewers. It’s numbers weren’t great before it went on hiatus, but it was building up some momentum as Fall was coming to an end. ABC’s Once Upon A Time took a similar break and it returned to decent numbers this last Sunday. But Agents of SHIELD was not as lucky, and this places the show’s status further in doubt. This series is certainly a pricey entry for ABC and I can’t see that its overnights are good enough to keep advertisers highly engaged in sponsoring the show. Its delayed viewing gains have been good, but that’s not something that advertise care too much about since they want viewers to watch the commercial when they air. I’m raising the show’s Cancellation Alert status to Medium and I believe the only chance it has to make it to a third season (short of a ratings turnaround) is if Disney steps in and delivers an edict to ABC that the network will bring it back for one more year. It’s hard to gauge the chances of that, so it will pretty much be a waiting game on this one until season end. And as I said previously, I believe that Agent Carter‘s fate is tied to Agents of SHIELD. If the latter show gets the ax, I believe that the former one will follow.

USA’s Dig had its premiere last night and I will be getting those numbers posted later today or early tomorrow when they are available. And be sure keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page. And for more information on where I get these numbers and how I make my Cancellation Alert assessments, check out the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

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Metric Definitions:

Rating: Overnight rating in the 18-49 demographic for same day viewing based on the final numbers unless otherwise noted

% Chng PW: The percentage change +/- for this week’s rating vs. last week’s rating.

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers (age 2+) to tune in to the episode for same day viewing.

StD Rating: Season to date average for the rating metric tracked above.

Target: The estimated average rating that the show needs to sustain to get renewed.

Cancellation Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.

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Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and ShowBuzzDaily